journalism

Seeing people smoking in a music video or a movie is a common scene not only in Uganda but globally. These scenes make smoking look fancy and this has far reaching consequences on the people especially the youth who look at musicians and movie stars as role models.

Health activists involved in tobacco control are concerned by this trend and want an end to it.

Andrew Kwizera, the Technical Resource Person in charge of the East African region for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids- a global Organisation on Tobacco Control says that many celebrities show scenes of smoking in music videos and films yet many are seen as role models to the youth. “Many young people who follow these stars have adopted smoking. This is setting a bad image to these innocent young people”, Kwizera observes adding that as a result of smoking, young people have been exposed to various tobacco related diseases which are hard and expensive to treat.

Photographs like this of the legendary music icon Bob Marley smoking are common with celebrities.

Statistics from the World Health Organization reveal that the average age of debutant smokers is 12-14 years globally.

According to Richard Baguma Tinkasimire, the coordinator Uganda Health Communication Alliance- one of the organizations at the forefront of tobacco control campaign in Uganda, young people are easily lured into smoking mainly by peer pressure and copying those they look at as role models. “Parents, leaders and celebrities must set a good example to the young generation and make children pick the best practices from them. Acts like smoking or tobacco consumption in any form should be discouraged”, he explains.

As part of the efforts to promote a smoking free generation, health activists in Uganda have adopted the use of musicians and other celebrities in the tobacco control campaigns.

Sophie Gombya- a household name in Uganda’s music industry is one of the Tobacco control ambassadors. “It’s true we have a big following, we have power to influence behavior directly or indirectly. As musicians and celebrities must be aware that what we do and show impacts on our followers.

Sophie Gombya- a Tobacco Control Ambassador.

We must therefore be mindful not to encourage bad habits like smoking among the people especially the youth who follow and adore us”, the vibrant Gombya explains.

Apart from Gombya, the Tobacco control fraternity has also used people like the Uganda National Netball Team- the ‘She Cranes’ to rally people against Tobacco- a move that Baguma says is paying off.

The Legal Framework

Uganda is a signatory of to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Article 13 (4a) prohibits all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship that promote tobacco product by any means that are false, misleading, or deceptive or likely to create an erroneous impression about its characteristics, health effects, hazards or emissions.

Uganda’s Tobacco Control Act of 2015 also bans promotion and advertising of tobacco products, open display of tobacco products and selling of tobacco products to minors among others.

Whether showing of smoking scenes in movies and music videos is deliberate to lure people into this act, it is a clear breach of the law and the reality is- it ought to stop.

According to Kokulinda Lutgard, the head of Tanzania Tobacco Control Alliance, musicians and other celebrities have a huge impact on their following and can play a great role in Tobacco control but also everyone has a character to play in this campaign.

The Global Tobacco Burden

According to health experts, Tobacco use is one of the main risk factors for a number of chronic diseases, including cancer, lung diseases, and cardiovascular diseases.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics show that Tobacco kills more than 7 million people each year worldwide with more than 6 million of those deaths as a result of direct tobacco use while around 890 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.

The most worrying fact is that nearly 80 percent of the world’s more than 1 billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest and alarming.

Over the years, significant strides have been made in Tobacco Control but this is more in developed countries than in the developing world.

Graphic pack warnings are being scaled-up in many countries to raise awareness about the dangers of Tobacco Consumption.

A 2017 report by WHO on “Monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies” reveal that more countries have implemented tobacco control policies, ranging from graphic pack warnings and advertising bans to no smoking areas. About 4.7 billion people – 63 percent of the world’s population are covered by at least one comprehensive tobacco control measure, which has quadrupled since 2007 when only 1 billion people and 15 percent of the world’s population were covered.

Uganda has an estimated 1.3 Million smokers- according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) report of 2013 with each smoker spending an average of 20, 730 Shillings (about 6 USD) on manufactured cigarettes per month.

Survival rates for children who get kidney transplants have improved significantly over the last half-century, a new study finds.

“The outlook for infants and children with end-stage kidney disease was once dismal, with poor survival rates after transplant. There has been great progress in pediatric kidney transplantation, and now the patient survival rate is almost 100 percent,” said the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Srinath Chinnakotla.

Chinnakotla is an associate professor of surgery at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, where the study was done.

Since 2002, 97 percent of children who had kidney transplants at the hospital were alive a year later. That compares to 85 percent 40 to 50 years ago, the study showed. Read More..

Comment:

This is absolutely good news and light at the end of the tunnel. With this break-through, more children will survive kidney transplant and this is a strong foundation for further improvements in the entire health system. However, as we celebrate this good news, it is equally important to think about thousands if not millions of disadvantaged children who desperately need a kidney transplant but cannot be saved either because of the poor economic nature of their families or lack of such services in major health facilities nearby.

by almost 11 points, on average, on a salt-restricted diet versus their usual diet. They also flushed out a liter of water (about one-quart) from their bodies, on average, by slashing salt in their diets, researchers said.

Having high blood pressure and retaining excess salt and water in the body stresses the heart and blood vessels, explained lead author Dr. Rajiv Saran of the University of Michigan.

For kidney disease patients, high blood pressure (or “hypertension”) and excess fluid in the body can be a toxic combination. “They die predominantly of cardiovascular disease,” said Saran, a professor of internal medicine and epidemiology in the nephrology division.

Yet doctors rarely have time or make time to counsel each patient about salt-restricted diets, he said.

Saran and co-investigators wondered whether having trained dietitians talk to patients with chronic kidney disease by phone or in person about ways to lower daily sodium intake would make a difference. Read More

Low back pain affects millions of people in the United States, and the condition is one of the most common reasons for people missing work. New guidelines from the American College of Physicians recommend noninvasive ways of treating nonradicular low back pain.

The American Chiropractic Association (ACA)

Low back pain is responsible for many people missing work today worldwide

report that approximately 31 million U.S. individuals experience low back pain at one point during their lives. The ACA also note that low back pain is the leading cause of disability across the world, as well as one of the most popular reasons why people miss work.

The condition accounts for a large proportion of all doctor visits in the U.S., and almost 25 percent of the entire adult population in the U.S. has experienced at least one day of low back pain in the past 3 months.

Food safety is an increasingly important public health issue and governments all over the world are intensifying their efforts to improve food safety. These efforts are in response to an increasing number of food safety problems like foodborne diseases. According to the world health organization, these are diseases usually either infectious or toxic in nature, caused by agents that enter the body through the ingestion of food.

Foodborne diseases are extremely fatal and severe

Magnitude Of Foodborne Illness

Foodborne diseases are a widespread and growing public health problem, both in developed and developing countries. The global incidence of foodborne disease is difficult to estimate, but it has been reported that in 2005 alone 1.8 million people died from diarrhoeal diseases and ever since, this number is believed to have increased. A great proportion of these cases can be attributed to contamination of food and drinking water. Additionally, diarrhoea is a major cause of malnutrition in infants and young children.

In industrialized countries, the percentage of the population suffering from foodborne diseases each year has been reported to be up to 30%. In the United States of America (USA), for example, around 76 million cases of foodborne diseases, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, are estimated to occur each year. While less well documented, developing countries bear the brunt of the problem due to the presence of a wide range of foodborne diseases, including those caused by parasites. The high prevalence of diarrhoeal diseases in many developing countries suggests major underlying food safety problems.

While most foodborne diseases are sporadic and often not reported, foodborne disease outbreaks may take on massive proportions. For example, in 1994, an outbreak of salmonellosis due to contaminated ice cream occurred in the USA, affecting an estimated 224,000 persons. In 1988, an outbreak of hepatitis A, resulting from the consumption of contaminated clams, affected some 300,000 individuals in China.

Major Foodborne Diseases A Glance

Salmonellosis: Thisis a major problem in most countries. Salmonellosis is caused by the Salmonella bacteria and symptoms are fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea. Examples of foods involved in outbreaks of salmonellosis are eggs, poultry and other meats, raw milk and chocolate.

Campylobacteriosis: This is a wide spreadinfection that is caused by certain species of Campylobacter bacteria and in some countries, the reported number of cases surpasses the incidence of salmonellosis. Foodborne cases are mainly caused by foods such as raw milk, raw or undercooked poultry and drinking water. Acute health effects of campylobacteriosis include severe abdominal pain, fever, nausea and diarrhoea. In two to ten per cent of cases the infection may lead to chronic health problems, including reactive arthritis and neurological disorders.

Cholera: This disease is increasingly becoming synonymous with the developing world thus a major public health problem. The disease is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. In addition to water, contaminated foods can be the vehicle of infection. Different foods, including rice, vegetables, millet gruel and various types of seafood have been implicated in outbreaks of cholera. Symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting and profuse watery diarrhoea, may lead to severe dehydration and possibly death, unless fluid and salt are replaced.

Together we can lessen the spread and the effects of Foodborne diseases

The list is endless but what is more important to note is how to lessen the outbreak of these diseases. The world ought to join hands in promoting food safety through senstisation and policy formulation among other initiatives. These efforts should cover the entire food chain from production to consumption should embrace all types of expertise world over.

In what appears to be the beginning of a great working partnership with the media, Mak SPH has trained over 25 health journalists from different media houses on accurate health reporting, precise interpretation of health research findings, handling and construing statistical data as well as the policy implications of research findings among others.

The 5 days training ( From May 28-June 1,2012) at the School of Public Health Annex in Kololo, covered a number of captivating topics such as the over view of HIV control and prevention in Uganda, identifying credible sources for health information, summarizing research findings, safe male medical circumcision and epidemiology among others.

The course coordinator Joseph Matovu from the School of public health explained that the main objective of the course was to improve on the skills of journalists in health reporting. “This course is aimed at sensitizing journalists on basic health concepts and build their skills in using them to improve health reporting in Uganda” Matovu explained.

He added that health gurus sometimes are upset by inaccurate media reports about health research findings, inappropriate use of words like prevalence, incidence and rate which among other reasons compelled them to intervene through such training.

Participants expressed utmost happiness about the course and its timing. “For sure, this course has benefited me a lot and I will not repeat the ‘common’ errors I have been committing in health reporting” Olivia Namaloba, a correspondent with UBC radio noted. “Am thankful for this course because i have learnt a lot about epidemiology, interviewing for health reporting, male medical circumcision among many others and I wish this course could be extended to other journalists” a jolly Alomu delux Emmy from Etop radio and paper told this site.

Regarding the continuity of the course, Matovu explained that this is the beginning of ‘things’ and the school together with its partners such as CDC will extend the same training to other journalists at a later time.